ASCENDANT.COM: Now in Color!
Welcome Convoyers, to the first installment of our DevBlog series! We are excited to share our feedback review with you. Earlier this month we held our largest playtest to date, and in this blog we’ll showcase a series of topics that we wanted to share regarding vision, outcomes, feedback and celebrate everyone who participated! Let’s get started!
Playtest Learnings
We’d like to thank each and every Convoyer who took part in our playtest and provided feedback. Your input is valuable to us, whether it was through our post game survey or our discord. The version of the game you played is still in development and we are constantly working behind the scenes to make the best game possible. During the playtest, we sought out key data and feedback to understand areas to focus on; everything from fine-tuning to rework.
Earlier this year we held a public playtest that was designed to tell us how effective we were in guiding players through multiple facets of the game:
- How do players learn the game?
- Do the tutorial missions achieve their goals?
- Do people pick up on what user interface elements are trying to convey?
- Do players remember what they have experienced in the tutorial and are they able to translate that into a match?
- How long does it take players to pick up on different aspects of the game?
- What turns players off of the game?
For this recent playtest we wanted to showcase the game’s largest art update and start to reveal ASCENDANT.COM’s biologically mutated and engineered world and retro inspirations. Harmony, the map you played in, is a beautiful place plagued with man made biological horrors and evolved abnormalities to immerse yourself in. With the beautiful and horrific art in place, we also wanted to understand how players discovered objectives and points of interest throughout Harmony.
For this playtest, we wanted to identify:
- How does upgrading placeholder art assets with higher quality versions affect the player experience?
- How does a new tutorial flow perform?
- How do combinations of differently skilled players within the same match affect balance and enjoyment of the game?
What we learned was that the way we were teaching outside of the ‘game map’ wasn’t very effective. Not that it was a surprise, but it also confirmed our thoughts about what the impact of skill discrepancies between teams in a match would be and how this affects early player retention. We were also proven wrong in how forgiving we thought players would be of placeholder art (‘not at all’ was the conclusion). Despite this realization, we’ll move forward in making the game look even better the next time you join us. But for those of you who weren’t with us before this playtest, take a look at some “before and afters” of how the art has improved prior to your first time playing!
A Fresh Coat of Paint
The art of ASCENDANT.COM was a huge milestone for us to achieve with this playtest. You can see what our game looked like before we implemented many asset and visual updates.
You might have noticed that some assets around the map were still under development, but rest assured we’re still applying loads more into Ascendant each passing day.
Community Feedback
We put our ears to the biological waste ridden ground, spoke to the EarthTree, and had tea with a traumatized Gorlizard to understand what you had to say about your time in Harmony. After a few games of Ascendant we asked for your feedback regarding how your experience went. Thank you for spending your valuable time providing feedback!
We asked “What was your favorite moment or aspect of the game?”. Your top answers were:
- Gunplay
- No Fall Damage
- Character Voicelines
- Personality/World-Building
- Humor
We also asked “what was your least favorite moment or aspect of the game?”, so here’s what our lead game designer wanted to say on each to provide context on design direction:
Performance
We have very recently started getting art into the game map, so we are still working through all the optimisation the game needs. Hell, we haven't even finished putting the art in yet. There are still plenty of things in our TODO list here but we felt that the game had taken a big leap forward and wanted to share that with the community.
Tutorial
One of the things we want to avoid is holding players back for too long in mandatory tutorials that try to teach them everything before they can get into the action. What many of these tests focus on for us is effectively, "how little can we get away with hand holding players through, and what seems to be the most effective way of getting information across without becoming a chore?” A change we've made since the last playtest is that we effectively removed a "pre match tutorial" and instead try out a sample of other styles of introductions (e.g. videos, in-game hint systems, alongside the onboarding missions), so that we can see how this might differently affect how quickly players pick up on different things in the game. We are still going to be expanding more on tools to let players learn the games, and ways to more effectively convey new information, but it's also important to get a sense for which kind of tools seem to be effective before we invest too deep into fully fleshing them out.
Motion Blur
So what we're seeing at the moment is not Motion Blur but rather the result of TSR (Temporal Super Resolution). This is different from motion blur and occurs when TSR is not being fed enough data in the form of a combination of frames per second and screen percentage (3D Resolution in settings).
What is TSR?
TSR is a technology that comes with Unreal Engine 5 and is similar to what NVidia's DLSS and AMD's FSR do, but with Anti-Aliasing included. The technology is still in the early stages but we're investigating solutions to the issue, including investigating DLSS and FSR. The main goal is to develop an heuristic to determine the appropriate Screen Percentage to keep TSR fed with enough data to avoid it looking like motion blur. Epic is also developing tech to solve this issue, and we believe that the improvements coming with 5.3.1 combined with our own solution will alleviate the issue. TSR is necessary when Lumen is active (High and Ultra settings on Global Illumination), we are considering alternative Anti Aliasing methods for when Lumen is off, and that would certainly solve the issue entirely. Keep in mind this was a pre-alpha preview, and investigation into possible solutions is still ongoing.
Movement
There is still more to do around player movement that we are looking to complete in the near future. This is tackled from a variety of angles:
How the player character physically interacts with different types of terrain and obstacles when running, climbing, or sliding.
How collision on obstacles is built to make the movement around these assets as smooth as possible. For example, avoiding annoying things players might snag on, uneven rocks that might be annoying to run across, surfaces that create jarring climbing experiences, etc.
How the animations themselves play with the movement system.
Across all of these factors we have polish to do. Part of what made some interactions with the environment less smooth than we want comes back to art: because we are still in the process of dressing the map, we haven't yet fine tuned all of the collision on rocks etc. This might sound like a simple thing to do, but assets on angled terrain or assets that sit next to or even on top of each other creates more variables that need to be tackled. A specific point on movement that came up with is in regards to how quick or slow (depending on which side of the fence you're on) the movement is. We are quite happy with the pace of movement as it currently is and have no plans to speed it up or slow it down, but we're rather focusing on making the above mentioned experiences smoother.
More PvE
More PvE will be coming but, to be clear, the game is intended to be a PvP experience first and foremost. PvE within the PvP matches will always be subservient to that goal and act more as side objectives or as interactive ways of collecting supplies. Once it is working as well as we want it to, we will be putting the rare boss back into the deadyard (some of you might've seen it in previous playtests, but it's not playing nicely with tech at the moment), but our goal is always for these more challenging PvE encounters to be more of an 'opt in' experience. We have a goal that we don't want PvE to create 'randomly unfair PvP encounters'.
Sensitivity Control
We have disabled mouse smoothing after the playtest. Mouse acceleration was never on in the first place, but it is something we plan on exposing for players to be able to set themselves if they so wish. Sensitivity sliders in general are getting a little bit of a change, too; we will be keeping all of the individual sensitivity settings but also create an ‘overall sensitivity’ slider that rules them all, for those who simply want to quickly adjust everything at once.
Beam Gloves are “overpowered”
Beam gloves are an interesting balancing case in that their effectiveness goes up in 'lower skill' matches but goes down in 'higher skill matches'. When it comes to the 'maximum output potential', they pale in comparison to all other weapons, but the question comes down to “how much of a weapon's potential can a player achieve with the alternatives”, and beam gloves, in the right situations, can act as a bit of an 'accuracy gatekeeper' ("if a player lands less than X% of their shots, the beam glove is a better option for close quarter combat"). When it comes to players with lower accuracy, we don't want beam gloves to become a weapon they feel like they "have" to use. But from the other perspective, we also don't want them to have too low of a presence in games with higher accuracy players. We have no 'planned changes' to talk about, but be aware that they are something we're looking at.
Controller Support
We can’t provide an estimate for when this will be available just yet, but ASCENDANT.COM will have controller support!
Radio Chatter
Some players even doubled up on their feedback after completing our in-game survey, leaving all kinds of feedback such as praise, critical feedback, and so much more. Here are some excerpts left in our Discord server:
"There is. So much to this game. I was nonstop discovering new features/enemies/map events/tech/mechanics. After the 4 hour playtest, I was kinda hooked. It's definitely the most in-depth pvevp game I've played so far." - [SF] BoboXXL
“The game is fast paced and very fun PVPVE. The biggest flaw in this playtest I think would be the lack of performance. Overall very fun game and fast pace, with performance issues as expected from a playtest.” - Kallliii
“Overall I would say its a solid start, and theres alot of room for improvement. Ill still probably play tomorrow, but I almost certainly wont be coming back for the next test unless the performance is improved drastically. ” - Someone
“I know there wasn't much optimization done so that was understandable, I think that should definitely be a priority for future playtests. Looking past a lot of the issues that can be fixed, I am really excited to see where the game goes. I've been wanting to get a game like this ever since the pre-frontier Cycle ended, and this has been the best one so far. Can't wait to see the progress you all put in, I can see and hope to see this go far!” - Hekate (BocchiTheGosling)
“Overall the game looks better then it did back in April. But just feels unplayable for me currently. I'll check out a future playtest again down the line given the opportunity. Seems promising enough though all around.” - DKoi OP
We appreciate your time and value your feedback. It means so much to the team that you took the time to share your honest thoughts and feelings about Ascendant.
Would you look at that…
EPIC-HANDSHAKE.gif. Convoyers, it is with great pleasure to share that you do indeed got that dawg in you. Throughout the playtest you beat the hell out of every snail you walked across - you monsters. Speaking of monsters, 1.5 MILLION DAMAGE TO GORLIZARDS? You realize that they’re supposed to be threats to you, not the other way around? We have more stats for you to flex on, so be sure to check out the rest of the playtest stats on our socials!
“HEY I WANNA PLAY. OPEN IT.”
We’re extremely lucky and humbled to have such an excited community eager to play our game as soon as possible. Almost every day we’d get questions like “when’s the next playtest?!” Let’s cut to the chase - we’re excited to announce the ASCENDANT.COM: Community Playtest program!
- Updated build from the open playtest
- Playtests are twice a month
- Alternating EU/NA Servers
- 54 Players per playtest (for now)
- Streaming and Recording Permitted
- We will have some requirements before going live.
Stock up on extra hard hair spray and get your montage playlist queued, because you’re going to need to look really good kicking ass! We’re working hard to get a date out to you as soon as we’re ready, so keep an eye on the ASCENDANT.COM Discord and our Steam Community page for the first playtest announcement!
Community Highlights
Our recent playtest wouldn’t be possible without YOU, Convoyer. Whether you are a content creator, hobby streamer or someone who just wants to make friends with snails, we’re beyond grateful for your support and participation. Here’s a shout out to those who shared their experience with their audience, and gave Ascendant a stage to perform on!
Gameplay with Devs! 1v1 Duel Arena and Hide & Seek!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/4s7mEkd_4I8?si=Ml1V6jLQIcgcmEfT&start=1783
Casual Wardog Gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/embed/AR3SFTrXN_A?si=qNa6t-Gdhz0WK1EN&start=404
Magnety [Extraction News]: Is This the BEST Extraction Game In Development?
https://www.youtube.com/embed/8JDe_RnyTUc?si=Jdn1kpJYnavMaWXs&start=408